Chapter 101: Spider Derby

They navigated through golden hallways, looking for Asha and a woman named Ariadne.

Jemi introduced the man they walked with as Theseus. Ying wasn’t up-to-date with human politics, but apparently, he was the prince of Archizoun. He walked first in the line, a spool of golden thread in his palm. It turned out that this was some sort of magical thread that had led them through the dark Cretan Labryinth to the golden heart of the maze, where they currently were in.

From the prince’s luxurious dressing and posture, he looked arrogant, as well. The type to never bow down to anyone. Ying wondered how Jemi had managed to get someone like him to do her bidding.

Perhaps because of her recent dreams, Ying thought about the past, again.

The sixteen-year-old Cockatrice was a force to be reckoned. She had been one of the few survivors from the Vermillion Massacre—when a red-haired warden had laid waste to the den. Jemi had emerged from the incident callous, cruel. Despite the cavalier smile she wore on her face, her heart was as cold as ice. At her young age, she possessed terrifying power, and at the time she used it so flagrantly that even Ying, who had every reason to despise humans, was disturbed.

Ying had known Jemi for a very long time. Longer than Lochlan, than Asha. She had known her from even before Jemi met Ennanis Zoleil. There had been many a night they shared conversation, prowling under the stars, where the pixiu would learn a little more about the elusive Cockatrice’s true heart.

“I was always curious,” Ying had asked that night, bitter mountain winds whipping her coat as she scaled a rock cliff. “If you and Medusa got Prometheus’ sun, what exactly would you do with it?”

“I’d get access to Paradise, so probably like, unlimited cider.”

“Be serious, now…”

“I am serious!” Jemi had chirped, leaning her gloved elbows on her scruff. “Medusa would use it for all the boring political stuff, so obviously, it’s my job to use it for the fun stuff.” The teen turned masked eyes down on her mount. “What would you use it for, Ying?”

“...World peace, probably,” Ying admitted. “An end to this war would be nice.”

“Sheesh, you old people are lame…” Jemi’s voice trailed off. For a while she became submerged in thought. When she spoke again, it was with a strange sobriety. “It’s not like you can do that with the sun, anyway.”

“Why not? Isn’t it all powerful?”

“There’s a bunch of stuff you don’t know about the sun, Ying… or that most of us don’t know, really,” Jemi said in a low mumble, and Ying had to flap her wings less noisily just to hear her. “I’ve spoken to Medusa before. Magic isn’t a cure-all. Sometimes it isn’t even a good thing. In fact, it would have been better if the sun had never been brought down to earth to begin with. Or spawned any of its angels.”

“I dunno,” Ying responded uncertainly. “The angels do good work sometimes. They keep the peace in the undercloud. Help the humans who are sick or abused, or otherwise vulnerable.”

“Yeah, but a lot of the time, they do nothing,” Jemi’s voice grew sharp. “Or they make the situation worse. And worse are the humans continue to rely on them, instead of helping themselves. When they see a problem, they pray to a distant mountain god and go to sleep, patting themselves on the back. If I… if I had a say over what I would do with the sun,” she squeezed her fist. “I would destroy it. And kill all angels with it.”

“...I’m not entirely sure that would help humans,” Ying muttered.

“Yeah, well, I don’t care.” And the conversation had ended there.

That was the Cockatrice of back then. Before the sunprisons, before any of this. Where many Beasts were simple soldiers that followed orders, Jemi had been a classic villain. Everything she did, she had done for others—but it made her no less terrible, for her actions caused consequences that rolled far beyond the ones she did help. She had pretended not to care. Somewhere along the way, the broken girl had given up on caring.

But now… Ying looked at Jemi, walking ahead with hands in her pockets. Now, Jemi was different. Perhaps something had happened to her. It could have been during the sunprisons. It could have been in the six months before the battle of Fifth Peak, when she had disappeared without a trace, and returned wearing a crimson scarf.

Or… she could have simply begun to evolve on her own, over the years.

Did it matter? Did it matter what it was, or who it was that changed her? Maybe, she had simply started to change for herself. Point was, she was no longer the same cutthroat she used to be in her youth.

For a while now, Ying had been puzzling over Jemi’s decision at the volcano. Now, did she realise the answer. In her own stumbling way, even if it hadn’t worked out the way she wanted it—

-Jemi Garen had wanted to care again.

“You’ve been quiet for a while now, Ying,” Jemi’s voice interrupted her train of thought. “What are you thinking?”

“Um…” Ying blinked. “...Thank you. For coming after us.”

The gold-haired woman turned her head, giving her a dry smile. “Of course I was going to come for you both. You two came in here because of me. Don’t sweat it.”

“Where’s Ennanis?” Ying asked.

At the mention of the angel, a certain look flickered across violet eyes. The look that Ying still couldn’t quite place.

“Soleki can’t reach inside this maze,” Jemi answered, “an angel like her would wither. So she couldn’t come.”

On hearing that, the prince Theseus turned his head. “I almost forgot you have a friend that’s an angel. When you’re a Beast.”

Jemi glanced at him, then at Ying. “He knows I’m the Cockatrice,” she clarified for her.

“Medusa damn. How’d you get him to work with you?”

“She blackmailed me,” Theseus muttered as he unlooped his golden vine. “Now I’m just sending myself to my death. Be grateful, you ladies.”

Jemi arched her brow. “Don’t you mean, you’re here to stop yourself from dying?”

“I’m very confused,” Ying admitted.

“I’ll explain later. We’ve got things to do,” Jemi dismissed. She barked at Theseus: “Why haven’t we found Asha yet? Are you leading us nowhere?”

The dark-haired prince cringed. “This thread leads us to the heart of the maze! It doesn’t lead me to Ariadne… or your friend.”

“So you’re just walking us in circles?”

“Look,” the prince snapped, irritated, “I’m just counting on the fact that, as long as Ariadne’s still here, she will be looking for me.”

The hallways all looked the same. Domed ceiling and twin rows of torches blazed down the corridors, flickering with the three adventurers’ echoing footsteps. Every torch was caked in cobwebs. Ying had thought it normal, for a place so dusty and abandoned. But now as she paid attention, these spiderwebs seemed awfully consistently placed.

And then, a familiar sound sent shivers down her spine. The sound of clicking pedipalps. It made her freeze in place.

Prince Theseus merely stared at the single black spider that scuttled along the wall next to them. The spider swivelled its eight red eyes on him, then scuttled onward.

“Let’s follow that,” said the prince.

Jemi was looking at Ying. Meeting her gaze, Ying nodded, gulped down her fear and followed. Soon, the walls grew dimmer. The golden hallways ended, giving way to the dark maze beyond. And then, Ying heard a familiar voice, echoing.

“Heeeey! Ying, Jemi!” Asha yelled. “You’re alive!”

The makara-girl rushed out from the darkness to envelop them both in a crushing hug.

“Somehow,” Ying answered her, though she too was melting in her arms in relief. “This was your crazy idea, doofus.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Don’t say that, we’re not exactly out of the woods yet…”

Behind Asha, in the gloom, stood a tall woman with long black hair, in a fiery-red peplos. Her eyes, deep and black against her alabaster skin, were focussed upon Jemi.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Whisperer,” said Ariadne. “I’ve heard much about you.”

“Likewise, Lady Minotaur,” Jemi replied. Her joking manner was gone, replaced by smooth formality. This was a situation she was taking seriously. “You were wise not to harm my friends, or I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep a promise I made to a certain man you know.”

In response, Ariadne scoffed. “It is beneath you to worry about such trifling critters, princess. When you have much bigger things to be protecting.”

“I will decide what’s worth defending,” Jemi’s eyes narrowed. Ying could see that she, just like her, didn’t understand what Ariadne was talking about. However… “I’m not here for you, just for my friends. So, to make things easier for both of us, please step aside and let us leave in peace.”

A sneer split across Ariadne’s face. Prince Theseus looked immensely uncomfortable, but for all his fervent praying could not become invisible. “You mock me. You dare bring that man in front of me, and use the golden thread I wished upon a star for, to walk out of this labyrinth?”

“You could come with us,” Ying suggested.

“No!” Theseus cut in. “We can’t allow her to leave. Look at what she’s become. Who knows what she’ll do if she gets out?”

The sounds of spiders bristled behind Ariadne. The woman bared her fangs.

“Exactly,” she hissed. “And if I don’t get to leave, no one gets to.”

“.......” Jemi sighed, as if expecting this. She gave the decorated golden hallways around them a glance. “Your home’s pretty nice. Would you rather do this outside?”

Ariadne ripped a webwoven torch off the wall, leaving a gaping hole in it. From the hole, crackling arachnids spilled out like a gush of black oil. They skipped off the wall, jumping onto the woman’s arm, scuttling their way onto the silken torch until they had covered it completely, like shining black beads. Before their eyes, the spiders regurgitated more silk, causing the torch to lengthen. There, where they hugged the elongated torch, hundreds of red eyes suddenly dimmed. With a CRACK, their black exoskeletons flattened at once, creating an exquisite, glittering black blade. Same for the spiders that covered the skin of her arms, which had turned to obsidian armour. Ariadne swiped her scarabic sword through the air, and the bristling of the spiders turned to near roars.

Jemi shrugged. “Your loss.”

~~~

The two princesses sparred in the heart of the Cretan Labryinth.

The Cockatrice was a shaft of moonlight dressed in billowing black. Lunaki sparked off her figure as she leapt off the domed walls, which turned silver for the instant her soles of her boots made contact with the wall, before she flashed down again, slashing at the black-haired woman with extended claws. Her brilliant feathered tail acted as an extra limb, snapping and cracking like a whip. After having just walked through the entire Cretan Labryinth to get here, it was incredible she still had the energy to fight like this. It was clear that she wanted the fight to end fast.

However, Ariadne proved herself a tenacious opponent. Her reaction speed was astonishing for a mere human’s, intercepting the soaring Beast with her sword. The Cockatrice’s fighting style was up-close-and-personal, which put her at an intrinsic disadvantage against her enemies, which were usually armed. Yet, it was the style she always stuck to.

A single glance of the Death-darting Eye would have ended the fight instantly. However, the Cockatrice was too wary of accidentally freezing Ying and Asha too, who were fighting off spiders of their own. Therefore, she was forced to keep up the combat. Fortunately though, the Cockatrice had the firm upper hand throughout the fight. Even fatigued, she was still a war commander. A once-aristocrat who had done nothing but wander hallways for years stood no chance against her. Thus, the fight didn’t last very long at all.

The Cockatrice sent Ariadne flying into the opposite wall with a resounding crash. The other woman’s scarabic armour cracked in several places. Meanwhile, the Beast left no space for breathing, pouncing after her. She cornered her battered, lying form, caging her neck within a hand of claws.

“Ready to give up, now?” Jemi asked. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I must.”

Ariadne only sneered once more. “No.” She tilted her chin up, and from the darkness of the maze beyond, a crackling tide of spiders crawled forward, spreading over the walls, looming in threat.

“Back off,” Jemi growled at them, but the spiders did not seem to listen to her.

She turned back to the black-haired woman below her. “Whatever. I just have to kill you first, and they’ll stop.”

But just then, she felt an icy pinch on the side of her neck.

Prince Theseus was holding his sword at her throat.

“...You made a deal with me,” he said lowly. “You promised not to kill her.”

“Oh?” Ariadne’s voice dripped with something contemptuous. “How chivalrous of you, my prince.”

“Hey, don’t forget about us! You’re not getting anywhere with that.” A high voice squeaked. Both Asha and Ying had combined their forces to summon a silver icicle in the air, aimed at the dark-haired prince. The makara-girl squinted her eye, and silver sparks began to glow off the icicle.

“Hahahahahaha…”

Lying against the wall, Ariadne began to laugh shrilly. A tear escaped her eye, rolling down her bruised cheeks. Everyone: from Jemi with her claws around the woman’s throat, Theseus who had his blade against her neck, to Asha and Ying who held Theseus at bowpoint, stared at her in confusion.

“There’s no need for all of this,” Ariadne’s lip curled. She nodded at Jemi. “Is there?”

It was then that Jemi began to feel it: a burning sensation spreading from her thigh. Below her skirt, it was a near-imperceptible cut through her stocking. Just a superficial graze of Ariadne’s sword, which shouldn’t have mattered. Except, that this sword had been made of flattened spider carapaces. And from their bodies, golden fluid had leaked out into the thin, invisible fissures of the mosaic blade.

Poison.

“…She’s already a goner.” the woman drawled.